private democratic caucus meeting shortly to discuss maybe a potential deal on the fiscal cliff. of course you are on the finance and commerce committees. what do you think can happen at this late stage? are there -- we were talking before and we had a panelist on earlier, mike leonard dyson, saying he doesn't think 400,000 or 500,000 as a cutoff is a good idea. the president previously said he doesn't want to work on tax necessary that way. that's one thing that has been floated. what do you think will happen? can and are we going to see any kind of deal? >> i think in the next couple of hours will be a critical time period because both parties are having their afternoon meetings and then leadership will go down to the white house and i would just encourage everybody to still put things on the table. even if it is a smaller package. i would certainly take, you know, a half a loaf at this point in time and dash punt the rest until we get to major tax reform and come up with the rest of the savings. i would do that because i think giving people predictability and certainty in the